Windows
by Orokid
Summary: Hermione's POV. There's hypothetical windows and a certain boy is on Hermione's mind.


**Orokid**_: I wrote this before and during my summer vacation. I think it's a good story and possibly could compete with my Untitled fanfic (which I am thinking of continuing soon, cause I have written two or three of the nine pages I have promised some people), but who knows? It might start to stink, because I started writing an ending to this while typing and that usually does not end well, to tell the truth. Lol. Anyway, please read and review, and I hope you like it! PS- It's in Hermione's point of view, if you cannot guess that from the first couple of paragraphs._

**Disclaimer**_: I do not own Harry Potter nor any of the characters I have mentioned in this fanfiction. Those belong to JK Rowling and I personally do not wish to steal them away from her since I AM an honest person and all. If I do mention any of the characters that do not fit in with this series, than it is more than likely I shall have claimed parental ownership (due to the fact that I most likely have made them up on my own) instead of a copyright ownership, since, to get those, you pretty much have to pay sixty bucks or something for that and all. And that, my dear readers, I do not have, so… yeah. Sticking with the parental ownership stuff._

_ANYWAY! Let's get a-readin'! And don't forget to review this whenever you can because I really will love you if you review me. Hell, I'd give you a cookie- if I knew you, of course… Heh heh… Like I said, let's read!_

**Windows**

In the muggle world, a window is defined as a pane of glass surrounded by a frame, usually made from wood or a wood-like material. A window is usually used as a looking glass, made so one could look in or out but not enter the home in which it is attached to. They differ in size, and there may sometimes be a lock on one side- placed mostly on the inside of the residence in question- so that others may not push or pull it open.

But that's just what it is there, in a world I used to live in, used to communicate in with people who thought that I was normal. I suppose I can't truly blame them, since I used to believe that people with supernatural powers belonged only in books or on the telly- not in the real world where there is much terror and where bombs and terrorists exists. There were only normal people who did many things manually, who went down onto their hands and knees to pray to a person no one truly knows exists. Normal people have no powers but use weapons to protect the people who find it hard to protect themselves, such as guns or blades or other things created to kill or destroy.

And, when I turned eleven, owls had swooped into the kitchen one day to tell me that I was nowhere near normal. My parents tried to be supportive, but I know that they feared what I was or could become, who I'd turn out to be if I did indeed go to this school where I'd been promised a location in. They used their imaginations, remembering witches upon the telly or on the big screen, and I know they had a deep fear that I'd turn green and grow a wart on the tip of my proper nose. They would stay up late and discuss the pros and cons of me going to this school and learning spells, and becoming friends with other boys and girls with my same issues. My mother fought to let me go, knowing that I had grown up into this shy and lonely little girl, cursed to be that way if I stayed in the muggle world. She believed that I'd have a chance to be something in the wizarding world, while I'd remain nothing more than a work-a-holic here. My father felt as though I'd worsen my condition, that they'd treat me horribly because of the lack of bloodlines coursing through my veins. At this, mum had rolled her eyes and stated that the wizarding world was more than likely to have gone beyond the boundaries of such medieval things like pure bloodness compared to no real known witch or wizarding DNA, to those that could also have a portion of it. To her, the thought of judging someone's worth by their blood was unconstitutional and something God himself would not forgive.

A window had opened while another had closed. My way to Hogwarts had been agreed to, and I was destined to be there at the beginning of fall.

I never told them that they both had been correct in their assumptions by the time I had been a month or so into schooling. They had worried enough in their time for me, during much of the summer, and it didn't seem right that I should write home complaining how I was still alone and how certain people- a young man with pale blonde hair comes to mind- teased me and called me rude names just because I was muggleborn. Instead, I wrote how I was enjoying my new school and how I enjoyed taking the classes that I had been given. I wrote saying that my bed was light and fluffy, and that I loved laying in it and thinking of them in the middle of the night. The last thing I'd ever tell them was that I cried into my pillow most nights, and that I thought of them only when I was thinking of telling the headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, that a mistake had been made and that I wasn't meant for this life. Their photo, although unmoving and unmagical, was there to remind me why I was still there, at this school that seemed to despise me so. They believed that I could become something, that I could benefit from a magical education rather than a muggle one, and so I knew that I just could not let them down.

Soon, though, I could write to them about two young boys who had saved me from a life of loneliness, as well as an eight foot troll bent on causing harm to the human race (although that part had been kept from their knowledge for obvious means). I wrote to them about a red head with a fiery temper, who loved chess and candy, and loved to play pranks with his older brothers. I wove the entire ginger haired family into a story, talking about the laughs the twins had done and about their dreams, how the current youngest of the four school-going brothers talked non-stop about a wizarding sport called quidditch. Even though I didn't particularly enjoy the one's company, I was excited to have someone call me 'mate' or 'oy! Hermione!'. I wrote about the emerald-eyed youth who had seen more than any of us, who had longed for friendship in a greater spance of time than I had. Everything I found out about the almost too skinny eleven year old with dark raven hair, I wrote to my parents about, expressing my worries for him with more than a few pages of parchment, front and back. Mum and dad learned more about my friends than even I supposed I had written, and they would politely ask for pictures of my new best mates, and I would agree to their wishes, as well as tell them about what new g-rated adventures the three of us were having.

To this day, they have no clue about Fluffy, the giant's three-headed dog who had slept to the sound of gentle music. They don't know about how I had played a major role in protecting the world from the dark wizard who had scarred my green-orbed friend's forehead, his life, with that man's evil doings. My parents were ill informed about why I had come back with a few more, deeper, scratches than a child my age should've had. What they had been told was that I had made a wrong turn (which I had) and that the ever-moving staircases had caught me by surprise (which they had). Never to this day have I lied to my parents about anything that has occurred to me or my friends, because rewording is very much different than lying. They knew very well that what I had learned had helped me, as well as the ginger haired hot head and the emerald-eyed Boy-Who-Lived, overcome many obstacles- some more strenuous than others, I admit. What matters now is that, when I returned, they welcomed me with open arms, glad that my features- from skin to nose- had remained intact as I had left.

At the age of thirteen, two years after my acceptance into Hogwarts, I had felt a strange sort of throb at the exact moment my ears had learned of my one friend's inability to go to town with us. I will never forget the look in his forest green spheres as he looked at me, pleading for my help in some way or another. Nor how my chest throbbed painfully as I looked into them, chocolate swirling with the gleaming emerald gems in an endless and unknowing cycle. I knew somehow that he and I were meant to have our destinies intertwined, but I merely assumed that friendship was what binded us to one another.

But when the throbbing within my body only intensified with every glance I gave and got from him, I had turned to Madam Pomfry, who had only gave me knowing smiles as I told her about my sensations.

"And it only happens when Mister Potter is around?" she had repeated, looking up to me with a smirk that told me that she knew more than she would ever tell. By that time, though, I wanted my answers and the medicine needed to cure me from that ache I felt within. My mind had been formulating thoughts about what I would write to the people who had given me life, since I had some sickness at the moment, and how my best mates were doing at the quidditch pitch without me there to cheer. How was HE doing without me gazing up at him with anticipation, wondering whether he'd live to see the next day? How was he doing up in the skies, searching for that little golden ball while dark beings flew in the air as well, searching for the evil man named Black?

I nodded finally, hoping not to have shown that I had indeed been lost within my thoughts about the two men I had been friends with. Truthfully, I didn't really think much about how it had been more on the midnight haired boy, since a man other than the usual had broken out from jail just to murder my friend. True, it was a usual thing, having murderers out for him and all, but my worry has always been very large compared to the other boy I was a confidante to. So, really, I didn't believe that I should think much about my strange one-track mind.

She nodded back at my own, holding back the smile, let alone the words she wanted to say to me about my weird yet exciting thoughts and feelings that surrounded them. For some reason, I felt as though I were growing smaller and smaller underneath the woman's stare, and there just wasn't any sort of way to escape it either. I was growing very fearsome of the nurse who was supposed to have cured me from the disease I had been stricken with. What was wrong with me, and why in the name of Merlin was she just SITTING there? Could I have been dying, and she can't do anything but laugh at my expense? Growing frustrated, I felt my fingers clutch in anxiety at the bed sheets beneath me, and she slowly opened her mouth to speak-

But the doors crashing open made the two of us jump in surprise, not expecting a disturbance so great (and loud) so to keep us from our conversation. At first, I had felt annoyed as I watched her stand, deeming my treatment unworthy of her time, but all that had quickly vanished when I had heard an oh-so-familiar voice yelling out sacredly, "Harry fell off his broom!" My emotions changed to become the frantic friend, hoping to see his mangled body, to see the extensive damage and how much skele-grow the raven-haired young man would need. My heart was pounding within my chest at an unbelievable rate, and I assumed that I was having a heart attack because of it's thundering. Chocolate eyes moved about his broken bones- his leg that had been twisted around so gruesomely and an arm that seemed both unhinged and pointed in ways I knew it shouldn't, and my thirteen year-old body did it's best to hold back the bile that had nearly exploded from my lips. Shakily, my hand had taken his, and the mere touch of his skin against my own made all my sicknesses go away, yet the one I had come here for in the first place had doubled back with a ten-fold of all new emotions.

After she had administered the potions needed- one to grow bones, one to heal all internal bleeding and bruising, one to make him feel near to nothing pain- I had stayed behind while the others left to go to their respective dormitories for the night, to shower and bathe the stink and sweat playing that vile sport off their bodies. They went to bed without worries haunting them, without thinking that the trauma of falling so far so fast might cause their young seeker. Anger boiled through my veins as I watched my best mate sleep off his injuries, the moonlight cascading across his restless features through a window nearby, and I did my best to despise their uncaring characteristics. It worked for most of the night, as my hand held his without even remembering that we had classes in the morning, but I soon began to blame myself for not being there. There were so many spells that could've helped him, could've caused his fall to be less than painful, yet I hadn't been there to prove my wide array of knowledge like usual. I had been here, worrying about myself.

Little had I known back then, as my fingers gently brushed his midnight colored bangs from his face, that my own figurative window had opened up yet again. Little had I known that a door with a cursive 'r' and 'w' had slowly closed that night as well, leaving me my own opportunity to stop it from closing it at my own will. Little had I known, I really didn't want to.

Once more, another letter had been written to my parents soon after Harry Potter had awoken, portraying the events that had occurred, once more edited to portray how it hadn't been the life sucking powers caused by the Dementors, but rather how a bludger had been superbly beaten Harry's way. By the way I had written the quidditch game to my mother and father, it had seemed more like a short story, or even a novella, instead of a measly letter. Of course, it was truly fictional, I admit, and held not much of the true happenings as I had imagined it would. It seemed as though I had shaped the game into my own little proceedings, not even leaving out the emotional content in which I had heard others say. Instead of my gold and red team losing the game at such a large margin, the brave and valiant Gryffindors had been beating the sense into those nasty, cunning Slytherins, who had cheated their way into the ferocious battle between houses, only to lose by a mere ten points due to Harry's incapability to play his game.

The only thing my mum wrote back was that I should start a career out of writing, and asked if she could publish my century long story in the muggle world under my name. At first, I had laughed the idea off and wrote back saying that the story held a special meaning to me. Besides, it held no beginning or end- or, at least, a good end- and so I would have to tweak the story so much that it wouldn't be as good as the first time I had written it. The letter that came back to me said that I had my own choices to make, and, if it wasn't meant to be published, then it wouldn't be either. Also, mum told me, it had seemed as though my little short story had gotten dad hooked upon the game, and that he believed the wizarding sport to be better than football or soccer. He asked that I would keep him updated upon our school quidditch matches, and to order him the Daily Prophet so that he might keep knowledgeable on the games and who's who and whatnot. What he also said was that he wouldn't stop owling me and would cut my muggle allowance down to half its size while I would be home for the summer. Seeking the normal teenaged freedom, I had agreed wholeheartedly to his strange request, document (with style and always rated G) the rest of the quidditch matches of the season.

And I never did find out what was wrong with me…

During fifth year, I supposed it was the hardest year for my dear parents to accept. I had spent years hiding the truth behind my actions at school, hiding how I've been fighting evil this whole time without their knowledge or guidance. Their idiocy about the coming war would keep me by Harry's side, at my school, learning all that I would need in our future days while we fought to protect the world and keep everyone out of danger. I needed to stay at Hogwarts to remain being the "smartest witch of our year", and to keep my best mates moving whenever they would want to just give up fighting, to lie down and die without so much as a white flag to guide the Grim Reaper to their gravesites.

When the white haired wizard visited my home over the summer, to bring me to Grimmald's Place for the rest of my vacation, all my efforts to keep them ignorant of the wizarding world's issues had gone up in smoke, leaving me with an accusing finger towards my direction. Until then, I hadn't known my parents to ever look at me with anything but parental love and kindness, and also the will to help me succeed. All I could see was how they looked at me then, as though they had just suffered through the Nazi concentration camps in World War II and had woken up to find their shoes missing and their gruel being spilled by an angry inmate. I saw so much sadness- for me, for the life I had chosen to live- and so much anger- for keeping it from them for all these years without even mentioning what I was going through- and I couldn't do anything but cry. They had lost their trust in me, and I couldn't ever get it back, no matter how much I had wanted to tell them it had been for their own good. My eyes had not been dry when I had finally left my home, two suitcases being dragged behind me with a _locomotor_ charm that my headmaster had placed upon it, and they were barely that way when I had stumbled into the house where the rest of my summer would be.

For a long time, I had stayed in my room, coming down merely for meals but nothing more. Once in a while, I'd hear some strange woman (soon to be introduced as Nymphadora Tonks) call for me, begging me to exit the room I had been given at least once in a while. "It's not healthy to stay cooped up in this drafty old loony bin", I'd hear her say, causing me to smile at her words, but it would be then that I'd remember how my parents had looked at me before I had stepped out from my very own home for what could be the last time. As valiant as I had seemed to be back at the castle, I had started to think that I was just a little no one that shouldn't be around these good people, who didn't deserve friends and family like the ones I had. I had backstabbed them all in one way or another, and they didn't deserve it at all.

That was when all my suicidal thoughts began to surface, deep within the recesses of my troubled yet brilliant brain. Every time I'd find a reason to live, there would just be yet another reason to turn my own wand against me, to speak those two words that had brought my best mate so much pain across these years. For some reason though, as I thought about my friend with dark raven hair and endless emerald eyes, my wand stayed on my dresser table- away from my breast, away from my heart. Thinking of his soft smile and the way the wind tossed his thick mane kept me from doing the unmentionable to myself, and I soon was able to walk outside my room without the hunger for food as my reason. That same day, the ever-familiar family of redheads had crossed into the barrier of Grimmald's Place, and I found myself laughing once more after my week of isolation.

Sometimes, though, despite the fact that I'd wear a smile upon my lips, I knew that they were fraud. I knew that I was hiding my depression from the youngest resident there, out of them all, who seemed more than happy enough to worry me more and more about my friend who seemed not to answer my letters and who's name was currently sprawled across the Daily Prophet. She kept talking about him, asking me about the law in the wizarding world (and I'M the muggleborn), and the treatment they'd give him and whether or not he'd be expelled. Every sentence she spoke made me quiver with fear, and I hated how I didn't know anything. All I could do was hope that he hadn't casted any sort of spell just for fun, since the law I knew was that an under-aged witch or wizard may use magic in a life-or-death situation. If that was true, he'd get off scott-free from all charges, right? Right! I admit that I was beginning to get frantic, but I believed myself to have the right to do so. A young man who I had known to be my best mate since that fateful October night in our first year was facing Azkaban, as well as expulsion from Hogwarts. Didn't the ministry understand that if they threw Harry in jail or expel him from school that will teach him the magic he needed to know, whether he had been under the ordinance of the country of England's wizarding laws or not (though I just knew he was, considering the prior instances), that that was exactly the same thing as throwing the entire world into danger? Muggles, as well as wizards, would then learn the wrath of the demented overlord's power, and we'd all be dead by next Tuesday.

By the time Harry came home (since this place was more of a home to him than those damned relatives of his), I had been near to tears. Now, I can't even remember what I had said to him when I had launched myself into his arms, but I can vaguely assume that it had to be something about his well-being. I assume that mainly because it had been all I worried about then, so it'd only make sense if my questions on fast forward had been that way. He had smiled at me, I remember, with that nervous grin upon his features, and I knew that as he opened his mouth, words had come out. But I had heard nothing, my ears trained only upon his heartbeat, my eyes on those sparkling jewels that he hides behind those glasses, my touch feeling the warmth of his soft yet firm skin. I paid my full attention to HIM, but his voice, his words, were lost on me. It was the voice of a certain Ronald Weasley that had finally caused me to pull away, and I blushed lightly, embarrassed to have done that at all when my mind had registered that the redhead had just told me that I had been squeezing my best mate too tight, or something like that. My focus was still upon the raven haired man before me more than my other friend, and I had thought it only to be because of the last week or so of worrying.

When I was supposed to fall asleep that night, my body hopeful for a good night's rest since all had gone well in the end, I had found myself unable to achieve the possibility of dreams. It was strange, since I had been sure that my body would've fallen asleep due to exhaustion. At most, since I had heard of my friend's unfair trial (which he won), I had gotten a fair amount of sleep- two or three hours a night before I'd wake up and start to once more continue my studying (what else was I supposed to do?), and I'd wait for morning so that the others might join me for homework or a quick game of wizard's chess. But it seemed as though this particular night was different. I don't know why it was, but it was, and I was losing sleep over whatever _'it'_ was. So, I did what I always did in times like these- I thought, I reasoned, I studied. By four AM, my feet beneath me and my eyes drooping yet never closing, I had every book on health surrounding me, but none of it seemed to help. I was lost, I was tired, and I needed so much to sleep. By four-thirty, I had given up my fight and picked up a Jane Austen novel I'd been meaning to read for the longest of times.

As I read how Mister Darcy had first met Elizabeth, the heroine of this novel, I felt myself taking her place almost immediately. And who took Darcy's place? None other than the green-eyed, black haired man who I had supposed before was merely my best mate. But if I could see he and I taking the places of such a well-known romantic couple, then did I really think of him that way? It had taken me another hour, and six more chapters, before I had realized what had occurred between my brain and my heart. The last thing I had ever wanted to notice about myself was what I was currently admitting to myself, because it felt like I had defied fate by doing this at all. It was unthinkable, unforgivable, and I didn't want anyone to forgive me of my sins- or, at least, this one.

I had fallen in love with my best friend, and bloody hell had I fallen hard. Instead of searching for that window I spoke of earlier, I was now looking out of it, trying to determine whether I should jump from the ledge or continue to sit upon it. That, of course, seemed to get me even more bewildered than ever, and there seemed to be no hope for me.

Fifth year, by the time we had gotten there, seemed to have gone back at both the fast and slow paces that I had grown to knowing well throughout my new life as Harry's best friend. Of course, the fact that we had gotten Defense Against the Dark Arts cancelled for the entire year, forcing my best mate (under a little prodding by myself) to take the initiative and start a secret club. I never entirely got over the fact that he and Cho had gotten into the stage of kissing- something that I wanted to show him the bliss of- but I did laugh about how he had hated it. I might've walked away at the time, but I had stayed at the stairs to listen to what Ronald and he would talk about with me gone. It was childish, I know, but it was all that I had at the moment- the ability to listen in without getting caught by my two closest friends, one I adored and the other I… eh. I don't know how to think about him, now that I think about it… Found annoying? No, too mean, albeit true…

It's seventh year now, although I can't fully comprehend the mere idea of it since we haven't even stepped foot on the grounds of the school we had made our memories in. Strange, I know, but it's something that we've had to live through because of the things happening around us. I have turned seventeen, the legal age for an adult in the world I have lived in partially since I was eleven, while my friends have yet to turn age. The thing that makes me laugh now, in such dark times, is that, if I tried to have a relationship with the one I adore, I would be in trouble with the wizarding law- if they found out, that is.

Anyway… speaking about my deep and misunderstandable feelings…

I've had two years of knowing about it, about knowing that I have fallen for my closest , most dependable friend- although one year had been spent trying to deny everything and attempt to pretend that I didn't feel anything at all for the man, all because he had gone and dated someone I have only grown to despise lately… And the other year, to tell the truth, all I had done was pretend like I hadn't pretended at all. I had run away from my feelings for all this time, and I've done nothing to help myself with my issues.

To tell the truth, I'm growing impatient with myself.

A sigh comes to my lips now (and I know that I shouldn't be saying this but…) and I'm pretending all over again… Bloody Hell, I'm a prick for not noticing sooner, for not telling him about my worries and my deep and ever flowing love for him. But how could I really tell him the words I need to say to him- "Hey, Harry- do you wish to snog with me?" or "Harry, I know this might sound mental, but think I love you." Yeah, those things would go over well…

"What are you thinking about?" His words surprise me, I admit, since I've been staring out into the dark woods, thinking about everything that had happened to us since the day that we had met on that train back before first year had officially started. Right now, I'm not so sure whether it was the surprise that makes my heart beat so loud and fast or the fact that he's so near to me. Truth be told, I shouldn't be surprised that he could read that I've thought of troubling things- he's always been able to read me like a book, as though I am a quidditch book that he adores. "You seem… I don't know… as if there's something you don't like thinking of on your mind."

Actually, it's the complete opposite, although I don't believe I can tell him such nonsense right now. He'd look at me like I'm as mental as Ronald thinks I am if I told him that I'm troubled over something I do like, something I want to have as mine. "I'm fine." He gave me that look- that same look I've crumbled under many a time, as he's trying his best to pick into my barriers like he's always had no trouble doing. "Okay, I'm not so fine."

"Scared?" he asked softly, and I knew why too- out of the three of us, he was the one that feared everything all the more, who feared that he'd be the cause of so many deaths and that he might not be able to live up to the name he had been given by the press. Like he knew me from the inside out, I knew him- just better than he could ever know.

I shook my head, a sad smile on my lips as my dark eyes watch him so closely, reading him like he reads me. We know each other so well, and yet he knows nothing of my feelings- odd, I know, but I'm sort of glad that he hasn't read through that part of my barriers. It would probably be to strange for him to speak to me if I shown him my heart fully, without anything held back.

Smiling a little broader, I put on my class courage, hoping my hardest that he wouldn't run, all because this could possibly be the last night for us to be together, the last night for us to ever reveal feelings that we've hidden from one another. "Well… Harry… It's not exactly like that…"

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**Orokid**_: Yeah, I know I'm being evil by not telling the ending to my story, BUT I DID THAT ON PURPOSE! I want the reader to tell themselves their own ending, whether it be happy or sad, and I just thought that would be a better idea. So… What do you think?_

_Please review!_


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